


Major Leagues

by synthetica



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, HAROLD THEY'RE LESBIANS, incomplete knowledge of the lore probably, season 9/10 finale-centric, slight timeline manipulation, the two most popular characters are gay by default but make it sapphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27550765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synthetica/pseuds/synthetica
Summary: On day 63 of season 7, Jessica walks back onto the field for the first time all season. Four days later, her brother is dead. In that weird liminal space between, she meets the person responsible.Sometime after that, all hell breaks loose.
Relationships: Jessica Telephone & Sebastian Telephone, Jessica Telephone/Jaylen Hotdogfingers
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	Major Leagues

**Author's Note:**

> The Garages and the Pies did not play each other on Day 63 & 64 of Season 7 before the Garages played the Dallas Steaks on Day 65. This fic asks the simple question—what if they had? 
> 
> The rest should be canon-compliant through mid-season 7 to the end of season 10, which is to say, some other varying levels of strange and incomprehensible.

It’s fall in Seattle, and the night air is thick with humid fog and stagnant wind hanging low and oppressive over the valley, but even then, it’s warmer than it would be back home.

‘Home’, is, of course, one of those seemingly endless things that are relative—even the teammates who have been in one spot longer than others could dream of shy away from using the term too loosely. It seems like tempting fate to give such concrete terms to something that can change on a dime, and anyone who wants to last around here knows all too well that fate is not something that needs any extra temptation. Insofar as ‘home’ can be real, Philadelphia is where Jessica lays her head down most often lately, which is no walk in the park, but she’ll take its grimy streets over a peanut shell forever and always now for the nights she can sleep at all. 

Most nights, she can’t. 

Tonight is one of them. That’s just what being stuck in-between consciousness for a year will do to you. 

Between the past few years, sans one, bouncing jersey to jersey, she’s played in every ramshackle half-ruined stadium and new-money rich multi-splort complex in the league over again, but none are quite like the eponymous Garage. Like everything else in the city, it’s a looming, grey-scale, ugly cement monstrosity, jutting up from the weeds and cracked asphalt where it’s nestled in next to the rotted-out highway system like a sentinel. Approaching it alone in the middle of the night doesn’t help the ambiance any, but it feels no more foreboding with nothing but a practice bat and a light jacket than it does mid-afternoon flanked by her team and the roaring cries of the city’s fans. 

It’s not like she does this every night she can’t sleep, but it’s not the first time or the first city she’s snuck out of her hotel in. She doesn’t always make it back to the stadiums, either, but when something’s itching at the back of her consciousness and it’s nothing pacing around her room will save, it’s the most common salve. At the end of the day, through all the fire and fear, nothing feels better than this—a bat clutched tight in her hands and the sound of metal breaking against rubber. It’s the only thing that can silence everything else. It’s the only trick she knows, and now that she’s having to make up for lost time, it feels like a ritual she’s too superstitious of to no longer complete once all hope is lost. 

The stadium, like always, is quiet and dark around the perimeter, but the closer she gets to the doors, the clearer she’s able to make out a single, half-burned out stadium light from somewhere down near the field. Then again, that’s not unusual either. A rough game can lead to loose ends every which way, Jessica knows that better than most. She’s undressed in silent locker rooms, seen teammates crying long after hours in the dugout, raked her own fingers against her thighs so tightly she’s drawn blood trying to save face until her own hotel room door is closed. On principle, she spares little attention to other teams, but everyone in the league knows the Garages have had a lot of games like that as of late, even though they pummeled her own Pies 5 to 1 in the game this afternoon in revenge for the 4-1 squeaked out the day before. But win or lose, they have enough reasons to forget a few lightswitches on their way back home. 

She doesn’t have a key, but she doesn’t need one, she never does. Whenever and wherever she wants to practice, the doors are always open. Funny little thing it is, fate. 

Jessica’s footsteps echo long through the player tunnels, but it’s not until halfway through that she notices not every sound she hears is matching with her own and stills against the wall, readjusting the grip of her bat in hand. It was too faint to hear from outside, or perhaps the daunting architecture kept it too-well insulated, but out from the field comes the faint, unmistakable sound of ball after ball against a metal fence, rhythmic bright clanging ringing out through the night. 

It wouldn’t be the first time she hasn’t been alone here, either, but it’s rare, and even rarer she stays. Solitude is what she chases coming out here, after all, but even as she pivots on her ankles to head back down the tunnel, something about the sound piques her interest. The balls seem to be coming fast and hitting hard, only the sound of soft grunts interrupting the reverberating waves of shaking metal. It’s a sound she knows like the back of her hand, the sound that lulls her to sleep, and she’s well aware that not just everyone can make it ring like that.

The Garages have had a few reasons to leave the lights on, lately, but there’s a big one on everyone’s lips this year.

Maybe it’s a morbid curiosity that leads her forward, or maybe it’s just the itching in her own fingertips to make similar music now that she’s gone to the trouble of coming out all this far, but either way, she starts back down the tunnel, fingers curling and uncurling around the bat. Players have gotten rude before, seeing the enemy in their own turf, and she’s not above defending herself if need be—though it would be best if it didn’t come to that. There’s a lot of paperwork involved.

When the light finally breaks out from the field, she’s given a face to the shadow that’s been dancing in and out on shapes over the wall, and it’s… maybe not who she wanted, because no one is always preferable, but it’s sure as hell the only person on the roster that is interesting enough to make the journey worth going against her better instincts. 

Jaylen Hotdogfingers, alive and in the flesh. 

It’s not like she hasn’t seen Jaylen under those circumstances before, but not in practice, and not in years before today. Before this year, the only glimpses she caught of the Garages star were in passing from dugout to dugout back in their rookie seasons, where everything was bright and loud and sharp and she couldn’t have picked out a single opponent, or hell, even teammate, from a lineup if the Gods commanded it. She may have noticed Jaylen because she makes a point to try and always notice talent, but despite the rounds they played against one another, it was somehow never her game. 

Or maybe it was, and she’d forgotten that too. Wouldn’t be the first.

Still, it doesn't solve the fact that she didn’t play today, a coaching move that drove the entire Pies dugout mad as they clambered over each other all afternoon trying to get a glimpse of the latest elusive league curiosity. The rumors that fly around the locker room are stupid, bonkers stupid, but it's not like she doesn't laugh at Mickey’s zombie impressions or Betsy and Kennedy’s impromptu incineration reenactments in between innings. It just means she isn’t convinced there's something knocked loose in her like the others seem to. An oddity is an oddity, and it can all too easily distract from the core truth that remains underneath—whatever else Jaylen came back with, she brought all her abilities with her, too. And Jessica’s a lot more interested in that than whatever it took to crawl back out from the Void. 

Besides, she knows a little bit about what it’s like. To be gone. She spent an hour brushing shell fiber out of her hair this morning. 

She’s slow to approach the threshold, but from the looks of it, she could have been banging her bat along the side wall at full strength and it wouldn’t have mattered. Jaylen’s stationed off in a practice corner, not even the bullpen, holed off from the rest of the dugout with a half-busted fence and covered in a thin layer of well-worn red dirt over the concrete floor. At her side is what must be every single practice ball in the stadium collected into one basket, with countless more strewn about the dirt. Once she trusts Jaylen's sufficiently preoccupied, Jessica climbs down and leans her back up against the dugout wall. For a moment, she watches in silence as Jaylen grabs for a new ball and slams it with wind-breaking force against the fence, barely waiting to watch the impact before taking another. She counts the pitches, three, four, five, before she finally finds the rhythm well enough to make her move. 

Not a single step she took into the dugout caught a hint of Jaylen’s attention, but when Jessica swings her bat against the outside fence of the practice area right as she reaches back for another ball, it seems to do the trick.

“Hey,” Jessica greets, curling her fingers through the links in the fence and putting on her best smile, the one she gives to the radio reporters after a game when she knows she’ll be the only topic on the show. “Wanna throw a few of those to me?” 

Slowly, Jaylen’s beet-red fingers uncurl from the ball within it, letting it fall the short distance back down to the mountain with the rest. She blinks up at Jessica with bright brown eyes, expression unreadable aside from the curious tilt of her head. For a few beats of silence, Jessica’s worried she won’t say anything at all, that maybe something _has_ been knocked loose and her mere presence has broken her, but finally, she cracks. “Jessica, right?” 

She’d bother to be offended she asked, but it’s not like she was as much to write home about back when they knew each other before, and somehow, she can’t imagine that the Garages five year overview included a Jessica Telephone best hits highlight reel. So instead, she just smiles wider and says, “Yeah, that’s me. How about it?” 

There’s a second, right in that pause, where Jessica realizes she’ll be disappointed if Jaylen says no, after all this. It started out as a necessary evil, but now that she’s up close, she can’t help the jolt of excitement that rushes through her veins at the thought of hitting one of those blazing throws right back over the park. She can feel the spark of it in her fingers, chaining her to the fence through the agonizing process of watching Jaylen’s brows furrow in contemplation, her gaze switching between the pile and Jessica’s eager expression.

“Sure,” she says after what feels like an eternity, the ‘s’ rolling off into something that feels definitive, if guarded. “Yeah. Why not.” 

The relief of that is so immediate, Jessica barely has time to process the relief that Jaylen didn’t bother to ask her why she’s here. “Brilliant.” 

Watching Jaylen throw practice pitches and skimming through highlight reels is one thing—getting to hit them herself is a whole other game. 

She’s as fast as Jessica had estimated and faster, and looks at home on the Garages mound like she built the place, sliding her feet into pre-dug divots in the sand with each throw. At first, she keeps it simple, just fast straights like she’d been throwing against the fence, but after an embarrassing flub on the second, Jessica hits the next three to the stands. The only indication she gets for the next is a barely-there flash of a smile on Jaylen’s otherwise impassive face before she shifts her shoulders and sends a curve whizzing past Jessica’s ear, wind rushing across her cheeks.

“You’re good,” Jessica calls over the field, dodging the rebounding ball at her feet with a practiced hop and readjusting the sand with a lazy swing of her bat down. 

“You too,” Jaylen replies, in a decidedly different tone than the soft-spoken hesitation she’d been offering earlier. This Jaylen seems more like the Jaylen she was warned about, confident and even-keeled, her previously wide eyes narrowing into a sharpened edge of focus. “Hit the next one, though.” 

Well, Jessica’s never been much of one to back down from a challenge. 

She hits the next out of the park. There’s a faint crunching noise out from beyond on impact, but that isn’t her problem. Out of the corner of her eye, she thinks she sees a flash of white teeth, but she can’t be sure.

After that, it’s anyone’s guess what it’ll be next, but that’s between Jessica and the space it takes for it to find her bat. Straights, curves, fastballs, even a lefty, she tries to read each in the split flash of light against the sky as fast as Jaylen throws them. While not all of them hits with the sound she wants or even hit metal at all she’s able to find a rhythm with her, just like every pitcher before, but this one keeps on her toes so much better than most. It’s a syncopated dance, and every time Jaylen throws something with just the right body language to obscure her intentions, it raises kinetic energy up through Jessica's fingertips, alight with the challenge of figuring it out next.

“Are you sure you should be showing me this?” Jessica manages to ask somewhere in the thick of it all, right after a particularly brutal curveball that juts up suspiciously shy of hitting her face. 

In reply, Jaylen just shrugs into another pitch, this one mild enough to be returned and heard at the same time. “I’ve never gotten anyone incinerated outside of a real game, if that’s what you’re asking.”

It's more that Jessica doesn't entirely trust the idea that Jaylen wastes this many good hits in a row on her shoulders in the average game. Maybe it’s a poor reflection on her, but the obvious didn’t really cross her mind. There’s too much horror, too much pain to keep track of, and Jessica, as always, is too wrapped up in the challenge and her own cosmic horrorshow of a life to remember just what having Jaylen Hotdogfingers alive and in the flesh means. 

To be fair, it’s been a hell of a year to catch up on in the past day.

“I wasn’t.” Jessica expects the knowledge of it to hit heavy and chilling, with all the bodies burned in one little pitcher’s wake, but instead, it just washes over her and off. Even studying the seriousness in Jaylen’s eyes, the unavoidable truth of its weight, there’s something even more fundamental Jessica can’t bring herself to ignore. “It’s not like you’re doing it on purpose.”

“I don’t throw like this in games.” For a second, Jaylen lowers her arm and watches her, really watches her, hard enough for Jessica to want to squirm underneath the scrutiny, do a dance, just something to break the tension. But then Jaylen's brows soften, just a hair, and she raises back up again, taking an inhale Jessica can see in her chest from across the field. “I’ve been going harder on you. I’m not trying to get anyone hit out there.”

“I know.” Maybe it should scare her more than it does. Maybe something’s wrong with her. Maybe she’s already been through hell enough to no longer be afraid of another player when there are forces far beyond that capable of much worse. Besides, Jaylen said it herself—this isn’t a game. It’s practice. Good practice. The best she’s had in ages, even. So she nods and readjusts the brim of her hat. “Keep it coming.” 

Jaylens parts then closes her lips with a barely-there ‘oh’ before her expression steels itself off again, her eyes close, and she reaches for another. 

Time gets lost in the spaces between, as so many forces of nature can be prone to. Jessica isn’t sure how much has passed exactly, an hour or maybe much more, she can never be sure, but eventually, she’s snapped from the rhythm by what looks like a straight bouncing off the edge of her bat, giving an ugly bonk before careening into the edge of the dugout. 

“Shit,” Jaylen calls from across the field, and Jessica looks up to see red fingers curled around the crook of her pitching elbow, thumb soothing at a part of the muscle in circles. “I think that might be it for me, sorry.”

The disappointment is there in a flash but gone before she can blink, more of a reflex than anything, a twitch. Maybe it's because this isn't how this normally goes. More than half the time she’s alone, and all of the scant few times she’s bothered for extracurricular practice with anyone else, she's left with the itching sensation she has something left to give. But lowering her bat now, there’s a rare sort of clarity. It’s not perfect, but it feels like enough to rest close to satisfied. It’s easy to be honest, then, in offering back, “Don’t worry about it.”

Jaylen crosses back over the field, wiping the back of her hand across her forehead and then running it through her hair. Falling in step to walk back towards the dugout, Jessica does the same, readjusting her cap with the flick of her wrist. Despite her urge to break the silence, it’s not altogether uncomfortable. Back in the dugout, there’s a navy blue bag in the corner, and Jaylen reaches into it to pull out a water bottle, taking a few swigs before tossing it over to where Jessica finds herself lingering by the entrance. 

“I bet you get asked this a lot,” Jessica hedges, because the rumors are stupid, and she feels like she owes it to herself after this long in her presence to know the truth. Besides, you can never be too sure with the people she knows. “But are they really…?” 

The worry she might offend her with that dissipates sooner than it can really form. Jaylen cracks a smile that starts from the corners of her lips, all teeth, long before the question is out. “No, they’re not.” 

To demonstrate, she holds up her left hand and stretches out her fingers, so Jessica steps in a bit closer, just to get a closer view. Sure enough, they look… normal, or as normal as anything looks ‘normal’. Which is to say they look exactly like hers, except for a dark, uneven red from the lowest knuckle up. On display underneath the light, it’s clear that whatever they used to look like underneath, the skin has been burned beyond recognition. There’s a good several years of healing from the looks of the scarring, that’s for certain, but whatever happened, and she has no intentions to ask, it’s lucky she has them left. 

Still, the smile doesn’t waver, even when all Jessica offers is a perfunctory nod and a quiet, “Damn, sorry.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Jaylen shrugs like it’s nothing but the weather, digging out a small towel and slinging it around her shoulders, nonchalant. “Do you like, not need your own phone or something?” 

Jessica laughs, because it’s not the first time she’s heard that joke, but it’s the first time it’s been in response to probing of her own. The edge is playful rather than sincere or accusatory, and it’s refreshing in its own way, so she offers back a roll of her eyes and a noncommittal, “Depends on who I’m calling.” 

“Fair.” Jaylen holds out her hand for the water back, and it’s only then Jessica remembers to drink it at all, downing as much as is socially acceptable in the few seconds she has before it gets awkward. Jaylen doesn’t seem to mind though, taking it without the small curve of her mouth faltering. 

“Are you okay, by the way?” Jessica asks, because it just occurred to her she forgot to ask, and it makes her feel rude in the wrong type of way. When Jaylen just quirks an eyebrow at her, she vaguely points to her elbow, shrugging. “Your arm?” 

“Oh? Yeah.” Jaylen rolls her right shoulder in a demonstration, lean muscles impressively visible even completely relaxed. “It’s just… been a while, so the conditioning isn’t quite up to speed. I was here for a while before you showed up, too. I just don’t want to overdo it.” 

“I get it,” Jessica replies. It's not her place to pry out the details of someone’s pain. Even though it did. Look painful, that is. “You’re up tomorrow anyway, yeah?” 

The color drains from Jaylen’s smooth brown cheeks like a siphon, but Jessica only gets a glance to confirm it before she turns away, wavy bangs obscuring her eyes underneath the cover of darkness as she zips up her bag. When she turns back, her face is neutral again as she slings it over her shoulder. “Are you worried?” 

“I can take your easy on me,” Jessica says. She has more to fear from putting on her uniform every day than a single girl could ever cause for. It’s silly for anyone to act otherwise when they all do. “You better not just hand me a win, though.” 

“I wouldn’t dare,” Jaylen nods, and that in itself too is solemn. But when she meets Jessica’s eyes again, Jessica can’t help but be reminded of what she sees in the mirror, the same spark she recognizes in everyone she’s ever idolized. Everyone she’s ever considered an equal. It’s impossible to describe or quantify, at least in words Jessica knows, but it’s an unmistakable edge of determination, a spark that can’t be replicated. A love of the challenge that no other circumstances can fully snuff out. “Ready?”

It doesn’t seem all surprising, up close, why she of all people managed to come back from the dead. But she’ll keep that one to herself.

She doesn’t know if Jaylen’s talking about tomorrow, or heading out, but either way, she nods. “Course I am.” 

Even now, six years into the ILB, she has the urge to run and collect the balls they’ve strewn haphazardly across the field, but the perks of the big league mean work like that is somehow superfluous, and Jessica is long over trying to question it. But it’s like getting her sea-legs all over again, lately, and everything still feels foreign. So, instead, she waits at the edge of the dugout for Jaylen to fall in line with her, and they walk towards the tunnels together in the silence that only occurs after exhaustion, comfortable and well-earned. 

It’s only when they arrive back at the moss-strewn cracks of the sidewalk outside that they speak at all, and it’s Jaylen first, hands in the pocket of her shorts as she asks, “You’re probably with the team, right?” 

“Yeah.” There’s no reason why she wouldn’t be, but Jessica’s gotten better at that, recently. Not accidentally punishing honest questions. Not shutting doors. All that. 

“Be safe.” It’s a tone Jessica hasn’t heard before from her, and it stops her in her tracks, something heavy settling in her core. There’s another beat of silence, but Jessica doesn’t want to count it. “Thank you. For treating me normally.”

There’s a pain there that Jessica can’t help but feel she could mine if she wanted to, and she almost wonders if Jaylen would let her, but she can’t. It’s too big, and everything is too new, so instead, she puts on a ghost of a smile and says, “I’m always looking for a good batting partner.”

“I can still be that.” It’s a long way from peace, but the lines of her face smooth at that, her brows evening out across eyes that suddenly reflect the weight of the hour. With a blink, she turns to go offering a wave over her shoulder, tossing her words along with them. “It’s good to have you back, by the way.” 

“You too,” Jessica says automatically, swinging her bat lazily in her hands as she watches her turn to walk away. “I’ll kick your ass tomorrow.” 

She doesn’t stop walking, but Jaylen does turn her head back at that, and it’s only then she realizes it’s maybe the first smile that’s fully met her eyes without reservation Jessica has seen on her. “Not if I kick yours first.” 

Walking away, Jessica can’t help but think it’d be nice to see her again. A good rival maybe, a good practice friend. It can be hard, out here, to come by nice. 

The next day, Jaylen strikes her out in the second, Jessica gets a home run in the third, the Pies lose by 1, and Jessica knows she’s found a good rival.

The day after, Jessica’s called down by Dallas to find Sebastian Telephone flickering and bruised from stumbling shoulder-first into Jaylen’s fastball, and everything changes. 

Two days after that, her brother is gone, and everything stops.

The front office gets a note. Jessica learns that the front office always gets a note.

Jaylen writes them herself, each and every time. She doesn’t read it, but Sebastian’s teammates talk, so she gets the gist as they meander through the lobby of their management building. They’re as shocked and scared and sad as Jessica—selfishly, horribly—prayed they would be, because Sebastian deserved teammates that mourn him. He deserved teammates that cry on one another’s shoulders and share stories of his bright face, his sharp smile, his goofy sense of humor, the way he told the phone booth story the best out of them by a mile. He deserved friends that loved him. 

And they do, Jessica can tell. Of course they do. Anyone would have. 

Jessica needs them, too, because she feels like she’s been glued to the chair in the general manager’s office for two days, and no matter how deep her head pounds or how tight her chest winds, she can’t cry more than two tears at a time, like something’s pinching her throat and holding all the emotion inside and no matter how hard she tells herself to let it go, it won’t. So she’s just sitting there, still as a statue and hating herself for being sick of the sympathy, and there’s a note. 

The manager opens up the envelope, addressed in neat, straight penmanship to the Steaks, and Jessica shakes her head when he hands it out for her. He opens it up himself and scrutinizes it with a steeled expression that threatens to break, so she looks away, back down at the broken nails she’s chewed into oblivion. It’s a bad habit. She almost broke it, once.

“I’ll give this to the team,” the manager sniffs after a minute, and Jessica clasps her own wrists tight. “There’s one for you, Jess.”

Despite herself, she can’t help but look up at that, and sure enough, the manager slides her another envelope still left in the package, this time with her own name set in the same writing across it. She doesn’t want it to take it, it burns her fingertips when it does, but she can feel his eyes on her and it would be more energy than she has in her body to explain it. So she does, and runs a shaky thumb underneath the seal, trying to find her breath. 

It takes her a few tries to get all the way through, but eventually, she does.

_Jessica,_

_I’m so sorry. I know it’s not enough to just say that, but there aren’t enough words at all to convey how much I mean it. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I never wanted to hurt anyone, let alone him. Let alone you. I know there’s nothing I can do. I know you probably don’t want to hear from me. But… if there’s anything, anything at all, I’ll do it._

_I’ve paid for the funeral. It’s the least I can do._

_Jaylen_

Sure enough, out from the folded letter comes a small receipt, but whatever numbers or letters it contains become a blur beneath the tears that suddenly start to fall, faster than Jessica can gather her bearings and wipe them off. Faster than she wants anyone to see.

“I’m sorry,” she mutters to herself, somewhere in the direction of her manager. She blinks and shoves her cap down as far down her face as it can go, unzipping her bag to throw the note inside like it’s burning her fingertips to hold on any longer. She stumbles getting to her feet, but she barely has time to register it. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

The door is open and closed too quickly to read the manager’s face, but from the glimpse she captures, he doesn’t look surprised. Just sorry, too.

She doesn’t know how to tell her it’s different because it’s him. She doesn’t know how to say, _I don’t blame you, but I can’t look you in the eye._ She doesn’t know how to put, _I don’t hate you, but nothing can bring him back,_ in words that communicate what either of those things means. There’s no way to convey, _he was the only family I had, and I’m so scared to be alone again,_ without getting into weeds she’s not convinced she can bring herself, let alone someone else, back out of. 

So she doesn’t say anything at all. The note stays crumbled at the bottom of her practice bag, she keeps the funeral small, and when the afternoon shadows drag long, she plays ball. 

When she plays the Garages, she keeps her head down, because every time she accidentally looks Jaylen in the eye, she feels like part of her skin is melting alive, and she gets it now. She does. It’s the most terrifying thing in this world of terrifying things.

She’s sorry, too.

But she doesn’t know how to say that.

The days go on. The game stops for no one. 

And then, for the second time, she wakes up encased in cellulose and plant fiber of a Shelled One's pod yet again, and everything changes for real.

When Jessica wakes up for the second first time, and she doesn’t count all the swarming visions of Gods and promises and fire and red, burning, blazing red, as being awake, thank you—it’s enough of a stretch to count it as consciousness at all—it’s in a pitch-black dugout with neon red lights, and the bat in her hand is brittle and stringy but never loses shape. She doesn’t like the feel of it in her hands at first, because it’s lighter than the metal she’s used to, but it winds in coils like the real Dial Tone and when she smashes it against the dugout fence, it hits with ten times the force.

Something stirs in the air at the impact, wiggling a similar disturbing frequency. Something tells her to answer it.

“Just testing.” She feels alone, looks alone, but is she? Just as she thinks it she blinks, and off in the distance—and just how far does the dugout stretch—she begins to see red shadows pulsating and undulating in the darkness, soft words, and whispered voices. Her teammates? The thought feels right, correct, but from what information?

 _Just testing._ A voice repeats, or maybe many voices, all carried through one chord that does not speak aloud, but rather is felt in the pit of Jessica’s chest, carried up with her blood to ring between her ears. _We’re about to test you, too, Miss Telephone. Batter up._

With that, everything else fades down to nothing but the tips of her fingers and the object in her hands, and for the first time since she was placed back in this prison and even maybe before, she feels a smile break across her face. 

It’s been far too long. 

She doesn’t remember most of it, not in the way that she remembers her waking life, with its full of clear sensory details and peaks and valleys of emotion and vivid experiences. Instead, she remembers it in the melody of rubber cutting through the barrier of air, of the feather-light feeling in her muscles as she performs feats she’d only dreamt of with ease, of the kinetic, esoteric energy pulsating behind her eyeballs and floating through strands of hair, of the static-laden laughter of her teammates. Of the rhythmic, insistent ring of a payphone that fills her bones like marrow every time she steps up to the mound, clear as the day she was born.

She remembers little of the other team, as insignificant and easy to dispose of as they are, but she remembers Jaylen, because her eyes shine in flashes of red.

(Red is the only color she can see, besides white and black. Her eyes take weeks to adjust right in the light again, at the end of it all. Everything else is outlines, half-finished sketches in the blackboard of a darkroom. Lost except in dreams.) 

It’s sick, like heavy cold nausea in a free-fall, but there’s a hysteric relief and undeniable, intoxicating power in the realization Jaylen can no longer hurt her. 

Call it a false sense of self-importance, but she can’t help but wonder if there is ever a change in that red when Jessica is at bat. But she doesn’t remember anything about that either way, so it doesn’t matter. 

It’s an easy game, too easy. There’s too much left in her after, but that’s how they like to keep them, pent-up to harvest energy that can then be used to enhance everything already so naturally capable, especially with someone like her. It’s nothing new, to be kept waiting for weeks upon months like this. But she doesn’t remember anything about that either way, so it doesn’t matter.

Another year goes by the same as the last. 

She comes back angrier because that’s how they want her. It’s laughably easy to make her angry these days. Or it would be if she knew what experiencing anger actually felt like. It’s a strange sensation, to know what one is feeling but to be numb to the bodily cues, to remain bloodless and stone-faced and focused, to scream without having the air or the lungs to push through. But it’s nothing new by now.

She remembers this one clearer. She doesn’t know why.

Under the neon red lights of Saturday night, they’re having batting practice. 

“You excited?” One of the Wyatts asks, throwing an easy underhand with the express purpose of Jessica smashing it out of the stratosphere. 

She shrugs into exactly that and watches it disappear into a faintly star-studded void beyond the horizon. If it were a regular ball, it would have been torn to shreds, but the ones here are made of the same material as the new Dial Tone, and they never do that. “Eh.” 

“We’ll win, though,” Wyatt insists. Pothos, it finally comes to her. She tosses another, and she wacks it back into the sky. 

That used to mean something to her, once. Maybe it meant everything. Now it’s just nothingness, interrupted by periods of this—batting practice in a field that’s high above and far below, floating in an endless galaxy with the stadium stretching as far as the eye can see. 

She’s more of a person than she was before, but she still feels like a loose collection of static and cotton and poorly-assembled screws, all held together with the same electrical current that runs beneath their feet, encases her pod of a home, and fuels everything around them here. There’s a faint ringing in her ears and bones that never quite goes away, and it’s not her own. 

“At least we’re facing the Crabs,” York says from somewhere over to her left, up at his turn with the Pitching Machine. It never actually pitches for them, which seems unfair, but they wanted Axel and no one else, so Axel it is, and he’s off doing some type of pitching practice the rest would care not to imagine. “Nagomi is fun.”

She knows her teammates better now too, the second time around. They don’t spend much time together outside preparation for a game, but unlike last year, they were let out a few times for so-called “training camps”. She doubts it’s out of the need for preparation—including her, there are people here that were stars back ‘there’, but they never hit like they do now. No one expects it to be hard. Maybe it’s to keep them sharp, keep them on their toes. They like to think they’re funny like that. 

It’s game day today, though. The Crabs. Jessica glances over at York, twirling the practice bat in her hand. “Jaylen and the Shoe Thieves should have been fun too.”

“Ｉｎｃｉｎｅｒａｔｅｄ,” the Pitching Machine supplies with what it must believe is a helpful chirp, even though it comes out in the same robotic tone as everything else. 

“Yeah,” Jessica replies, beckoning another toss from Wyatt just to hit something. She heard that news. They whisper to her these sorts of things when relevant developments happen. “Right before the playoffs, too.”

Something at the back of her neck itches, like she’s forgotten something, but she feels disappointed for her, distantly, and that seems like memory enough. The Pitching Machine gives a noncommittal whir in acknowledgment. 

Not many people here were torn up about it, like they have the ability to be over much of anything anymore. Most of them have lost something over the past few years, long before the tides came for their free will.

It’s hell either way, prison or flames, but at least she gets to play ball.

The game against the Crabs is so very, very boring.

What happens after is anything but. 

It’s like the apocalypse was always said to be, except no one ever warned her it would go like this, exactly. The skies open up, the first rift in the stars Jessica’s seen here, into bright sapphire, blinding with the force of a hundred stadium lights. The ground rumbles, seismic, a shift felt all the way to the grind of her teeth, and for the slow, agonizing seconds of wait, she grips the Dial Tone tight and wonders if this is how it ends. 

She thinks she might be okay with that. But before the relief comes the flood, and it breaks across the horizon like a proclamation from on high. 

The Hall Stars begin to come out from the edges of the field, floating in immaterial shimmering rays until their feet touch down and they take full form, appearing one by one to stand beside the dugout. Over the looming feeling of unsurety, the thick coat of ozone on her tongue, and the rising sound of feedback static, Jessica catalogs each face impassively, but it doesn’t take her long to figure out the pattern.

They said, after Jaylen, the dead could never rise again. And They sound just as surprised as Jessica feels to see these new challengers rise. She no longer knows whether or not that is a good sign. 

The two questions lingering on her mind are answered, one right after the other.

Jaylen. The life bar hovering above their dugout in the same bright blue grows an extra million points higher when she's added to the total of all her new teammates. 

Jessica’s so busy following Jaylen with her eyes as she walks down to the end of the lineup that she almost misses the next ascension, but she’d recognize that flash of ashen brown hair anywhere. 

Sebastian Telephone’s ascent takes the life bar to eight digits.

They said the dead could never rise.

There’s something welling within her, something burning, piercing, just beneath the surface. Dying to be let out.

She tries to call out to him, but it’s vacuumed out of her like the air from her lungs when the static, all-consuming voice of a creature she has only heard in her half-fevered nightmares calls out through the sky.

“Play ball,” The Hall Monitor commands, and though Jessica cannot see him, they all know he's there.

The Shelled One acquiesces. They have already been pulling Jessica and the others forward, invisible strings in the form of mobius, omnipresent emotional energy that drives their collective behavior. The heady mix of indignance with an executioner’s determination moves them into position, Jessica finding herself wedged between York and Holloway in the wings without any real memory of getting there. Bong and the other Wyatt are already up on deck, and in that space, Jessica closes her eyes and winds the shelled chord of the Dial Tone around her fingers, another habit she no longer knows where she developed. 

When she opens them, Jaylen is up at the mound, because who else could possibly be. Every inch of her dark, eerily luminous skin is covered in wispy tendrils of electricity flashing in a manic dance around her frame, and where Jessica remembers red eyes, beneath static waves are only two pale, lifeless sea blues. 

Out of the cacophony comes only silence, still and defeating, as Jaylen raises the ball in her hands. The dugout buzzes with the anticipation of a thousand shells vibrating beneath their feet and Jaylen winds back, frame-by-frame slow. Right at the apex, where Jessica knows Bong’s hands tighten on the bat, Jaylen stops mid-swing, with her arm held high on an eternity’s pause. The buzzing grows.

And then, right in line with the tension of this forsaken universe threatening to snap itself, Jaylen brings her foot back down on the mound, and the sky rips open again. 

There are no more stars. Only the horrific scratching sound of a sonic wave reverberating its shrieking, piercing agony. It’s only seconds, it only ever is, but up here, it lasts forever.

Up between the life bars, an indicator light blinks. Feedback. 

Jessica jolts at the abrasive pink neon outline, wild in a way gone too stale and foreign for anything other than shifting her eyes around and blinking between the waving sonar bend of the horizon to watch Jaylen’s hand, still raised but slowly lowering. 

_Unnatural,_ a voice calls from somewhere in the back of Jessica’s head. It sounds like her. _Unnatural. Abomination._

Another voice, this time one she knows to be external because they all hear it wherever they go, says, “CRUSH THEM.”

It’s finally a worthy challenge. 

For the first time in this entire charade, Jessica isn’t convinced they know what’s going on. 

They’re winning, of course they are, but these corpses animated by a God-like energy are the only group that’s given their own God-imbued team a run for their money. Imagine that. There’s a hint of trepidation in the air, and it smells like oil and bloodrain. The lifebars hover at ominously similar percentages.

It’s the top of the second, and Jessica hasn’t batted yet. Neither has Sebastian. The feedback waves have come and gone without a switch. She’s getting antsy.

Alejandro’s up first, and Jessica watches Jaylen warm up her pitching hand on the mound as he walks up, still flickering. This time, she doesn’t even bother faking a pitch—She raises her hand to the skies, and they part for her like she created them herself.

Another harrowing, bone-rattling shriek of static rings out through the field, and Jessica winces her eyes close on reflex alone. A quick glance in the dugout shows everyone else in various states of doubled-over waiting out the shock waves of the sound to dissipate, but she blinks her eyes into focus and…

Well, there’s the Feedback. 

When everything’s quiet again, it’s Axel up on the mound, and Jaylen is right where he was in their own dugout like she belongs there, not even five yards away from where Jessica stands in wait.

“YOU'RE CHEATING!” The Shelled One accuses, and it’s impressive for something without a real voice to boom over the field. 

“Cheating?” Slowly, Jaylen turns from where she was looking out towards the field and into the dugout, where a lineup full of red-and-black stares pin her down while her own face remains impassive, save for a slide of her eyes. “By letting your own pitcher pitch to your team?”

As if on cue, Axel tosses a basic fastball right to the Pitching Machine, who turns it into an easy triple even on those stubby robotic legs. Jaylen shrugs. 

“YOU CANNOT WIN,” The Shelled One insists, but Jaylen just turns back around to watch the game, unreadable.

Duffy’s up next, then York, and Jessica’s on deck. She winds the cord of the Dial Tone between her fingers, then unwinds it, too close to Jaylen and the potent electricity she’s giving off for comfort and growing less and less sure of the ground under her feet by the minute. It wasn’t very much to begin with. 

“What are you doing?” It takes everything in her to keep her acrimony to herself, but the pressure of losing the plot is stacking up too thick to ignore the push a second longer. Still, she does her part by whispering it through her teeth, breaking from her place in line just slightly to draw closer to where Jaylen stands. 

“You’ll see.” For the first time since arriving here, Jessica sees a fucking spark in someone’s eyes, and it’s flickering like the surface of the sun, just like the rest of her. It’s not a good sort of blinding.

“What do you mean?” Jessica demands like They aren’t always listening. 

“Just watch,” Jaylen insists with a hush of air between her teeth. She’s not stupid. She knows that too. “Go. You’re almost up.” 

Up at the mound, Axel is as confused as any of them, even if the only indication is the slight shrug and barely-there knowing roll of his eyes as Jessica swings the Dial Tone in practice.

The first ball goes foul. Axel seems just as surprised as her.

The bloodrain pricks at her skin. Now is really not the time. 

The second ball goes foul. 

“MY DORK,” calls The Shelled One, but it’s not… Jessica stops mid-raise of her shoulders, because that’s not The Shelled One. 

It’s their voice, their cadence, but there’s something underneath, a layer of tonality that Jessica’s never heard before. She wants to turn around, but she knows it won’t be anything she sees this early in the game. The Shelled One is above this, all of this. It only speaks until it wants to be seen. But why would it say that?

It’s the confusion that turns into anger that turns the next ball into a solo home run. She just wishes she felt the usual relief of that. The Hall Stars’ bar takes a 10% hit off her alone.

“YOU ARE NOTHING,” the Shelled One gloats as Jessica runs the bases, and there’s not a hint of anything hiding underneath. 

She runs back to home, but the next ball is a ground out, so she lingers out on the edge of the grass and waits. 

Bottom of the second, Jaylen pitches Sebastian into hitting a solo home run. 

Jessica could have caught the fly-out. She didn’t.

She wants to wrap her arms around him. To ask if he’s okay. If this can be forever. She can’t. 

She holds her hand out as she passes, and he smiles, and even though the motion hurts the both of them, she does too. She tries to make it enough. 

This, of course, really gets the Shelled One ruffled up about cheating. 

As if to prove a point, Jaylen switches Axel back out another home run or so later, because she doesn’t know when, or how, or why, but it is Jaylen pulling the strings. At least in some respects. Not in the ultimate sense, obviously, but Jessica’s no fool. Whatever is happening, she is part of the catalyst. Nothing else makes sense. 

Jaylen this, Jaylen that. It’s always Jaylen. 

To what end, she doesn’t know, but she switches them again to put herself in Jessica’s dugout halfway through the top of the third. Curiosity might kill the cat, but Jessica just has to hope she’s more resilient than that. 

“What are you getting at?” She hisses, pulling up beside where Jaylen’s standing at the fence, tapping a sporadic rhythm with red fingers. “Why is Sebastian here?” 

“I have a plan, okay?” The shadows from her squid-adorned hat and the skylights cover nearly all of her face and draw Jessica in even closer to hear. Somewhere, deep in the back of her mind, she’s relieved she doesn’t have to explain her own state like this. “You can feel it, right? It’s shifting.” 

Whatever Jessica wants to say is swallowed up by another taunt from above, but Jaylen holds reality to pitch while Jessica fields at the bottom of the third, and that jogs her memory. 

Just like Axel, she’s been throwing softball after softball on purpose to her own team. But unlike Axel, it just keeps working, hitter after hitter. Somewhere between Boyfriend Monreal and Landry Violence, Jessica hedges closer and closer across the field from her position, beckoning Quitter to help cover. 

“Jaylen,” she hisses, because something’s wrong with her, something’s crawling like bugs and burning coal and power under her skin, and she just can’t let this go. She just can’t let it go. “Who are you even fighting for?” 

Something’s wrong with the Shelled One’s voice, but not like in the way it was earlier. Now They’re just angry. “STOP WASTING TIME.” 

“All of you,” she hisses, but there’s something wrong with her, too, like she’s just spotted something over her shoulder that’s peeling her eyes wide. “Alright? So stop it, and just trust me.”

She has to know how ridiculous she sounds.

Something’s wrong with the sky because it's dark and getting darker, even the flickering flames that permanently dance across Landry Violence’s face falling into shadows at home plate. 

“That wasn’t me,” Jaylen says before she winds up, not looking at anyone but just loud enough for Jessica to hear. 

She doesn’t know why, but she trusts that, even if nothing else. One of the Marijuana boys draws a walk, but it’s Jaylen’s hands that are shaking. She opens up the Feedback again when Workman Gloom comes up to bat, and it’s somehow infinitely louder yet out on the field, but nothing changes. 

He hits a solo home run. Something is wrong with the sky. 

Curiosity killed the cat, and Jessica’s more resilient than that, but she should have been more worried about who the cat might wind up being if not her.

Jaylen reaches for the Feedback again, but it didn’t work the first time, and it’s already too late. This wasn’t her, Jessica knows that now more than ever. She knows what this is. It wasn’t Jaylen’s fault the first time, either, and that knowledge hits her like diving into ice, like white-hot clarity that burns every cell on her body alive. Nothing but fate, undeniable and arbitrarily cruel, could be so chilling. 

She knows even before the Umpire takes the field who the Reaper has come for now and why. She knows before it’s done, but she can’t look away as her brother is taken up in flames for the second time.

Just like that, Sebastian Telephone is taken back to the Void. Gone in a blink.

It’s their punishment, her and Sebastian, it has been since they were born. Somehow, no matter what, it always is. He takes the burden of her mistakes, each and every time. 

But this wasn’t a mistake. 

The Shelled One taunts from overhead, because she is a pawn.

Something within her breaks.

Jaylen’s right. It is shifting. 

All she sees is red until she steps up to the mound again, and she breaks into shades of white and black all over again when she swings the Dial Tone against the dirt and the Shelled One calls, "COME ON, DORK!”

It’s wrong again like it was the first time they said that, but this time, she recognizes those layers. She recognizes the tone. Who else in the world calls her that? 

Who else in the world could communicate with her through the voice of a God, just to call her now? 

The dead can never rise, but they can piss off a God and embarrass their sister in the afterlife. It’s not everything, but at least it’s something.

It’s not enough, but she does hit a solo home run, and hearing the ringing cheers in his voice, even if muffled through the Void, is enough to keep a small, tiny, flickering light on somewhere in the back of her mind.

It’s burning, but that doesn’t mean she cares to keep her head up for the rest.

Jaylen switches and flickers more times than Jessica has fingers to count it on, and after that, she loses track. Jessica smashes every ball that touches her bat.

It’s always Jaylen on the other end. 

They’re going to lose, and it’s a relief. She’s never wanted to lose in her life, but she’s tired and sore and there’s a ringing in her ears she can’t shake. It feels like they’ve been at this for days. She’s tired of picking peanut fiber out of her hair. In fact, she can’t remember ever being more tired, in every single way, ever in her life. It’s bone-deep, and every single percentage point on the life bar feels like an eternity. She just wants it to end. She can’t remember what she was ever fighting for, not anymore.

They’re going to lose, and Jaylen is still in her dugout, with Axel pitching for the Hall Monitors.

“Go back,” Jessica tells her, somewhere underneath the outraged howling of the Shelled One and the gurgling bloodrain. “You won. You deserve it.” 

“I think I’ll stay,” Jaylen replies, mildly. Jessica sits down on the bench next to her, batting order long abandoned by anyone not slated for the top of the 9th. Jessica’s one hit was a ground out, and at this rate they’ll be switching soon. She curls one leg up on the bench, swinging absently with the tip of her shoes drawing circles in the dirt. “I was basically your pitcher anyway.”

“No.” Jessica clutches the Dial Tone, her fingers slicked with sweat and dirt and peeling skin from whatever preservative they kept her in for these few years. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us.”

A warm hand lands on her shoulder, and the gesture is so foreign she jolts at first, inhaling. But thankfully, it stays long enough for her to settle into it and look aside at the soft light on Jaylen’s face and that familiar, unmistakable spark of determination lining her eyes. “I think I do.”

Jessica doesn’t know if she can trust her, but she knows she can’t trust anyone else.

Something bashes against the fence, and she looks up to see Bong running from a pack of crows, the third out lighting up on the board.

“Let’s finish this,” Jaylen whispers, just loud enough for Jessica to hear as her fingers dig tighter into her shoulder before pulling away to readjust her pitching glove. She looks up at Jessica over her brows. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Jessica doesn’t know if she can trust her, but the sky is screaming in broken peanut shells and the Hall Monitor is looming over the stands and her brother is dead again, so she sure as hell can’t trust anyone else. 

They lose, and it’s a relief. 

It’s such a relief that the last thing she remembers is a set of hands coming down to catch her before she hits the ground, somewhere near second base.

Later, she’ll be distantly disappointed she missed the finale. But now, her fingers brush against the cool, damp grass, she blinks in that last 0% on the scoreboard, and knows it’s done.

It’s over.

She wakes up in a world that she’s told is completely different, but looks exactly the same. 

The first place she comes to is in a hospital, sandwiched in her own little cot between York and Quitter. She doesn’t spend a lot of time there, because she’s fine, or at least they said she is. It was routine, apparently—after spending that long in such… compromised conditions, it would be unfair to unleash them back into the league without doing due diligence on their well-being. Jessica is suspicious she was more of a guinea pig than that, but all her limbs work and she feels like a thick, toxic fog has finally cleared from her brain, so she’ll take it.

They give them all their league assignments right before they leave, and even after days of talking and speculation among the (now former) PODs, Jessica stares at the innocuous Kansas City on her callback sheet so long it no longer seems like a real place. Throughout the days before release, they all go throughout their hospital tasks with trepidation, waiting on a knife’s edge for something to be pulled out from under them, for the cracks of reality to split and two and reveal the truth. They lost, so they should lose.

But no. Her release date comes, and she goes to Kansas City. She gets a jersey and a spot in the rotation. She practices with the team—her team, now. Her team.

She’s free.

She doesn’t know why or how, but they’re all free. Even the Hall Stars, in their own way. All except for one.

The front desk has a note for her, and she knows who it’s from before she even opens it.

She checks the calendar, and they’re due in San Francisco the second week of the new season.

She knows where she’ll be. 

San Francisco is weird. The PolyHedron is weirder. Playing in it is a nightmare, even though the Breath Mints win, but at the end of the day, a blaseball stadium is a blaseball stadium, and they all serve the same function. When it’s desired, anyway. 

Summer is in its earliest sway, and the days are stretching long into the evening, hours after the last play is called and the teams pack up. True to its name, the shadows stretch in long gold strands in between the buildings, the water of the harbor shimmering it’s sparkling twilight in the background. It’s not nearly as quiet as Seattle was, the sunlight still keeps some lingering around the area, but it feels just as silent, just as formidable a building to approach, its weight hanging like a millstone.

Even in the setting sun, it’s easier to see the remaining light that’s been left on in the dugout, so obvious and bright that Jessica is astonished she missed it the first time, set against darker skies. But she wasn’t looking for anything then, and now she’s looking for…

She wishes she knew, or maybe, she does know and just wishes there was more to it. She should be angry, if not at Jaylen then something she’s done, even tangentially, but she’s not. She had no more say in this than Jessica, than Sebastian, than any of them, and deep down, even as she makes her way through the tunnel one foot in front of the other, she thinks she knows what Jaylen might say before she even sees her.

When she does, Jaylen looks just the same as they say they met under dimmed out stadium lights for the first time, but now in burning red. Beyond their new location assignments, it feels like a perfect mirror until she gets up close and sees the lipstick logo on Jaylen’s soft practice shorts, because Jessica would have remembered seeing her legs. They take up more than half of her body. It was colder back then, sure, but she blinks, and the Jaylen behind her eyes is in her Garages’ uniform, dirt-covered and weathered from a long day. That night is like a static videotape when she can’t sleep, so Jessica should know. 

So, this Jaylen is different after all, because this Jaylen is intentional. The first meeting was a fluke, an accident, out of their hands just like everything else in this godforsaken world. But Jaylen’s practice jacket has that fresh-from-the-cleaners sheen, Jessica’s wearing her best pair of spandex on her own legs and brand new sneakers just to break them in, and they both chose to be here.

Jaylen could have said nothing. (Whether Jessica would have broken from curiosity sooner or later is another story entirely.) Jessica could have ignored it. (The jury’s still out on whether or not Jaylen would have let her.) 

Neither hypothetical is relevant, though, because here they are again, Jaylen tossing ball after ball into the bullpen wall and Jessica stealing time watching her, holding her breath waiting for her to finally pull out of her own world and look behind. Each step feels like a mile, and she finds herself holding her breath, staring at the back of her head like a challenge. Look. Don’t look. Who breaks first?

It’s Jessica, but she kinda knew that to begin with and didn’t have a ton of pride riding on the outcome. She makes it to just a pace outside the bullpen before she taps her practice bat against the chainlink and watches as the farthest corners of Jaylen’s eyes and mouth curl up, the next ball she tosses going up instead of forward. Jessica sighs into the one-handed catch from over the fence, because she kinda knew that one to begin with, too. No one is that caught in their own head.

“You came,” Jaylen observes, finally, finally turning to face her with a pivot, peeling off a beat-up mitt and shaking out her hand. Her head is downcast at first, but Jessica’s still as a statue, and when that patience is again rewarded with her full and undivided gaze, Jaylen’s red-brown eyes are warm and bright, human in a way Jessica shamefully isn’t quite prepared for. But it’s a relief all the same. “Thanks.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Jessica asks, taking a single step back from the fence to toss the ball up and hit it back over the wall, gentle. Watching its trajectory, she decides to follow it, making her way to the door and letting herself in, rattling it shut behind her. It’s only looking at the ball as it rolls across the dirt by her feet, and then up to Jaylen’s pinched eyebrows under the shadow of her plain black cap, that it occurs to her maybe Jaylen didn’t consider that a given. “I want answers, obviously.” 

Jaylen pulls her cap further down her face and bites down on her bottom lip and okay, shit, maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say. Jessica inhales and backs up. “I’m not stupid, none of this is your fault. So if you’re worried about me blaming you, stop.” 

Slowly, Jaylen’s hand falls back down from her face to rest across her chest with the other, mitt dangling from two fingers on her left hand. “Thank you for that.”

“Are other people?” Jessica presses, ungluing her feet from where they’ve dug into the sand since she’d shut the door and taking a step forward, then another. “Because that’s ridiculous. Jaylen—”

“No,” Jaylen cuts her off, more forceful than she’s sounded since Jessica arrived. Despite herself, Jessica feels her jaw snap shut, hands falling to her sides. “No. I was just afraid you would. Because of your brother.”

It would have never occurred to her on her own because Jessica’s mourned enough times to know not to think like this anymore, but once Jaylen’s words hang in the air, the implication might as well have been whispered aloud on the wind. If there was a trade, life for life, Jaylen’s under the assumption Jessica would have preferred the opposite outcome. One look at the teeth still piercing her bottom lip can tell her that. 

But she doesn’t think like that, because that’s pointless, and she doesn’t consider it a dishonor to Sebastian to feel a twist of pain in her gut at the idea of any trade taking either of them. She’s grateful that’s not reality, not all the way.

“I’m not stupid,” Jessica repeats, reaching down for the ball between their feet. She brushes, fruitlessly, at the first layer of dirt before holding it out. It takes her just a beat, but Jaylen offers her hand in turn, and Jessica lets it fall into her open palm. They’re standing closer than before, but Jaylen doesn’t back up, so neither does she. “You aren’t responsible for that. You weren’t the first time either.”

Jaylen opens up her mouth to speak, but whatever words she’s chewing on, they’re taking precious seconds to manifest, and Jessica has too much on the tip of her tongue to wait and hold it back.

“I was going to say,” she drawls, twirling her bat up and down with flicks of the wrist at her side. “I don't know what you were doing, but I think you were trying to save us. I was trapped, and now I’m not, so that’s all that really matters to me.”

“I was,” Jaylen breathes, before she straightens her shoulders, swallows, and inhales deep into her thoughts, tone steadier this time. “It wasn’t just me, but once I found myself back in the Void, I knew I had to do something. It was all I could think about last season, after facing you all the first time. People were already talking down there about what could be done, Sebastian…”

Jaylen takes another breath in, but it doesn’t sound nearly as steady this time, and when she looks up to the late-twilight sky and blinks, Jessica feels that in her bones. “Let’s sit down, yeah?”

Jaylen just nods in reply, and that’s good enough for her. They make their way across the far side of the pen to a cool metal bench near the entrance to the locker rooms, nestled under the shade of its awning. Out of the sun, there’s a slight chill to the air, but Jessica welcomes it, her palms hot against the bench surface. 

This time, Jessica doesn’t have much trouble finding the patience for Jaylen to compose her thoughts. She runs a fingernail through the sand-filled metal divots absently, but keeps her eyes neutral on Jaylen’s form, trying to strike the right balance between curious and delicate, though the latter has never been her strong suit. 

When Jaylen speaks again, it sounds easier to get out. “Sebastian never gave up on helping you. Everyone else down there too, people who had never even met most of your team… Everyone was on board with trying to do something to bring an end to their power and rescue you all. I think something similar would have happened if I never showed up, but because I did, I knew I had to try, too.”

Jessica looks back up at her for a cue to speak, but Jaylen’s staring off somewhere out into the diamond beyond the fence, her knees pulled up to rest her feet on the bench, and Jessica decides to give her time in this, too. True to form, less than a moment later, Jaylen continues. “It felt like… if I could do this, maybe I could make up for all the hurt I’d caused.”

“It wasn’t your…” Jessica begins, almost on reflex just to have it said, just so that statement doesn’t go unargued, but one look from Jaylen’s weary eyes shuts her jaw yet again. 

“I know that,” Jaylen counters with a sigh, wrapping her arms over her knees and resting her chin on top. “Logically, anyway. But I still wanted to do something to counter it, to save something rather than destroy. Besides, I knew I could do something no one else could.”

“The feedback.” Jessica parts her lips to wet them, dry to the touch. “I can’t figure out why, but it’s that, right?”

She’s been running her own scenes through her head, too. 

“Yeah,” Jaylen confirms, leaning her spine back against the wall. Jessica follows suit, scooting to bring up her legs and cross them on the bench, absorbing the feeling of cool stone across her shoulders. “It was going to be a close fight, and the Hall Monitor knew that. But with enough weather manipulation, I could double up and create a strategy that would guarantee victory. In exchange for victory, you’d be freed.”

“I saw you try,” Jessica whispers, looking at Jaylen unflinchingly despite the trepidation still prevalent in her as she glances aside. She suddenly needs Jaylen to know this, because she couldn’t tell her in the moment and she’s spent the months since wondering if it’s true, but now, looking at her under the last wisps of sunlight, she knows it is. “I saw you try to save Sebastian. It means everything to me.”

“I’m sorry it didn’t work,” Jaylen replies, and when she turns to her, a tiny bit of light has returned to her eyes, a few of the worry lines across her forhead smoothed. Jessica will take it. “I’m sorry it had to be you and him in this mess.” 

“I’m sorry it had to be you, too,” Jessica counters, gentle because she means it, but firm because she can’t stand to let it be lost in the static. It’s too important because, in the future, she thinks it might be nice to spend some nights like this, even after they’ve spoken their piece. She thinks it might be worth holding on to something like a friend, if that’s what Jaylen wants. Jessica’s never had someone like this. Someone like an equal. “Can I ask you something?”

Jessica expects the fear from earlier to return in full, and while some of Jaylen’s guard falls back up over her face, it’s nowhere near the same. It feels, in her own way, as open as Jessica could hope for. “Yeah. Of course.” 

“Did you know what would happen to each team when you won?” Jessica pauses for an answer, but Jaylen just gives a perfunctory nod, almost like they both know there’s more to it than this. Jessica’s not stupid, but neither is Jaylen. She’d be a fool to even entertain otherwise. “Then… Why did you stay? If I were in your shoes, I don’t know if I’d go back to something that’s hurt you so many times when you could have just… retired. Called it a day in glory.”

Instead of dignifying that with her usual thoughtful replies, Jaylen just remarks, deadpan, “Would you really?”

“I don’t know,” Jessica sighs, before collapsing her head gracelessly on the wall behind her, the slight sting of pain revealing the truth. “No. But you should answer my question.”

“Honestly?” Jaylen turns to her in full, now, twisting across her knees to rest her elbow on the back of the bench and prop herself on her wrist, blinking at Jessica with the first sign of peace across her face all night. “There’s a lot of reasons. This is all I know, and I feel like I have more to give. I’m sure this isn’t the last time things will be hard for us, Jess. Can I call you Jess?”

It’s the easiest question of her life. “Yes.”

“I want to be here for it,” Jaylen continues, something serious settling across her face, fire deep in her eyes that washes over Jessica like relief, because yes, there is a future. They’re still so, so similar. “If at all possible. I’d rather be here, playing the game. So that’s why I stayed.”

“I’m glad you did,” Jessica whispers. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but she’s not too bent out of shape to hear it echo through the corners.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Jaylen asks, and Jessica just nods, taking a hand back through her hair. Even now without exertion in hours it’s damp with humidity, which means it’ll look like shit with her cap off, but she can’t find it in herself to mind at this moment. “I wanted to play with you. I felt like we deserved a chance.”

“Yeah?” Jessica feels the corners of her lips pull up without her input for what might be the first time in months. Maybe since she woke up. It feels foreign, but good, like cool ocean water off the bay, and looking at Jaylen’s own in turn feels like jumping straight into it. “I agree. It’d be a shame. You know, for the history books.”

“For the history books,” Jaylen agrees with the smallest, driest laugh Jessica’s ever heard. She’s left with the distinct, mutinous impression that it’s cute, simple as that. “Do you want to toss a few around, then?”

“Nah.” For the first time in her entire life, Jessica feels like there’s maybe, just maybe, something else in the world she’d rather do. “Let’s just sit here.”

Something in her heart leaps at how bold it sounds coming out of her lips, a mismatch of bravery she’s not used to anymore, but Jaylen looks at her aside and her eyes soften into clouds, strewn with golden light like the ones above. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jessica confirms, because it’s too late to back down now, and she can’t have Jaylen of all people seeing that kind of weakness. She swallows down any part of her that’s afraid of what’s next.

“Sounds perfect to me,” Jaylen leans forward just far enough to intertwine her fingers behind her head, keeping her gaze on Jessica as if to affirm she is, in fact, serious. Once she seems to find what she’s looking for, she leans back, chin to the sky, and lets her eyes fall closed. “We could use a break, you and I.”

With the moon peaking on the horizon of a new era, and the warmth of Jaylen, alive and breathing at her side, Jessica’s never agreed with anything more. 

She’ll take her peace, and hold on tight.

**Author's Note:**

> I just really wanted this fic and knew no one else was going to make it, sorry about it. If anyone else enjoys it, it'll be a feather in my cap, so comments/kudos/bookmarks etc are fabulous. If you wanna give it a [retweet](https://twitter.com/sovietminds/status/1327431791594983424) on twitter, that'd be pretty swell, too!
> 
> (P.S Yes I know the dork thing is about York but I said incomplete knowledge of the lore and I meant it let me have my fun.)


End file.
